tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post1851073616309334865..comments2018-05-14T15:57:17.930-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Cannibalism Runs in My Family: On Blurton's Self-Eaters and BeyondJeffrey Cohenhttps://plus.google.com/110433684739546897626noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-25490497796503785062007-08-13T11:43:00.000-04:002007-08-13T11:43:00.000-04:00Here's what JJC does: he cuts and pastes little mo...Here's what JJC does: he cuts and pastes little morsels [pun intended] of previous comments in order to pose impossible questions! Sheesh. [But also: haha, um, hehe, okay, now I'm nervous, um . . . whew].<BR/><BR/>First, I would have to say, with Karl [I think], that there are such things as pre-discursive species identities [some things really are biologically, genetically different from other things, and even with hybridization, designed or accidental, some cross-species are more possible than others], while at the same time, also following alongside Karl [I think], the ways in which "humans" have, historically, *known* and *defined* themselves "as human" is highly suspect, contingent, not open enough, oppressive, requires murder, etc. So, in my final comments to my post here, "Cannibalism Runs In My Family," I think I was mainly trying to say, in too much of a short-hand manner [I fear] that, historically, the definition of cannibalism has always depended on this notion of "self-eating" [humans eating other humans; i.e., eating "themselves"], which, nevertheless, also serves as a category of action [consumption] whereby some persons [particular "tribes," etc.] can be deemed, if still biologically or physiologically "human," less than "humane" [which means their humanness is "in question" and available for "purchase": conversion, conquest, enslavement, extermination, etc., all of which, in Blurton’s view are also “cannibalisms” of a sort].<BR/><BR/>So, the whole notion of cannibalism depends on a structuration of the term & category "human" that has to be open enough to allow for some "selves" to eat "themselves" in such a manner that they are really eating "others"--those who, by virtue of being non-self-eating "victims," are "more" than the "selves" eating them, while also being "less" [i.e., because they are consumed/absorbed]. Oh man, just looking at what I wrote, I'm asking myself: huh? Eileen, can you make more sense than that, please? I'll try.<BR/><BR/>Okay. The term "human" depends on cannibalism existing as a marker of a supposedly depraved or decadent human-ness, against which something "more human" has to emerge and/or define itself [and here I hope Karl would agree since I kind of learned this from Karl]. The borders that we want to erect between "human" and "animal" are mainly bogus since they depend on the idea that other living forms [even humans sometimes, if we can label them, as with the Jews during World War II, as "vermin," or as with blacks in America, as "niggers," etc.] can be viewed as distinctly and wholly separate and "less than" [mind-wise, soul-wise, capacity for expression-wise, body-wise, etc.] *us* who have need of these borders in order to justify expansion, consolidation of empires, commerce, the use of "subjects" for "medical" "study," food or labor "supply," etc. In this sense, Blurton's main argument, throughout her book, that cannibalism is really a discourse of political power, makes perfect sense to me [although I worry that she pushes too far who and what "count" as cannibals and cannibalism in the various texts she analyzes--more on that later]. And in this respect, I also really like dan remein's idea of the Danelaw as big mouth swallowing up the Danes [Anglo-Saxon assimilation, essentially].<BR/><BR/>Having said all that, though, and returning to JJC's question--<BR/><BR/>". . . do we want to apply the lesson of love -- and the caveat of not dismantling ourselves and our boundaries so that demarcation fails -- to the cannibal? And you know what I must mean is 'the one whose place the cannibal holds'?"<BR/><BR/>--I say "yes." Following my comments on earlier exchanges with Karl that JJC highlights here, I think we have to try to grasp [through love, which might mean, not grasping, but being grasped by] two ideas simultaneously:<BR/><BR/>a. difference exists, but:<BR/><BR/>b. it is never as clearly or cleanly demarcated as we like to think; thus:<BR/><BR/>c. we must try to accept the fact that a human is not the same thing as a bat or a cow, but the possibility of these living forms "touching," through love or wonder or other forms of affect or "thought" [a “touching,” moreover, that would be more like Kristeva’s “brushing by”—i.e., not violent] is highly to be desired and sought after for the purposes, let's say, of enlightenment, but also for the pursuit of what Leo Bersani and Ulysse Dutoit term, in "Forms of Being," an "ontological passivity" leading to a "shattering" of individual identity that allows for a fuller "being" to emerge--a "being," moreover, that would be large, open, full, multiple, and connected. I'm still trying to work through all of Bersan's and Dutoit's ideas in this book, which I am very "in love" with, but also wary of in some respects. One cannot allow oneself [or an idea of oneself] to be "shattered" in order to "connect" with a more full, more enworlded "being" without first having, not just some *notion* but some actual *possession* of an an embodied self that can then be let go of. And the question is also raised: can we not have *both*: the bounded *and* the unbounded self? Do we even have a choice?<BR/><BR/>Also, what about cannibalism *as* a form of love? On that note, check this out:<BR/><BR/>http://www.vanderbilt.edu/exploration/news/news_cannibalism_nsv.htmEileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-17510422871116562622007-08-12T16:47:00.000-04:002007-08-12T16:47:00.000-04:00One thing that seems to be at stake here--for me--...One thing that seems to be at stake here--for me--(and I have held off repsonding to anyone so far only because I was trying not to get eaten by a pile of latin flashcards trying to graft itself onto the descendants of mama grendel), is not so much the "becoming human" formula but the becoming non-human. <BR/><BR/>Is Grendel a cannibal becomes, as Eileen intimates, a question of difference or sameness with the people of herot as well as Beowulf and his retainers. Grendel "descends" (almost like a noun "declines" from its (falsely) most pure nominative state in other more prosthetic, less "connected" cases). We do not think of Grendel as an animal, but as a monster. One who, Blurton does a good job of noting, is described obscurely--so his threat could become quite human--and so the threat of other invaders might become more monstrous. <BR/><BR/>On this line, I agree with Eileen's:".. The truth is, we are, all of us, cannibals, but we have need of the prohibition against cannibalism in order to fool ourselves into thinking we are, if not human, then humane." <BR/><BR/>This other part becomes more difficult:<BR/><BR/>"How to account for the variety, the difference, of life forms, that nevertheless, make the possibility, at the same time, of "human" and "dog" possible in a way that is mutually sustaining?"<BR/><BR/>Perhaps the way to crack at this in _Beowulf_ is simply to ask--forcing a hermeneutic moment (not matter how contrived)--in what way Grendel and Heorot work as part of Deleuzian machines--what do they _do_, _together_?<BR/><BR/>Finally, It also occurs to me that the metaphor of incorporation, as a political metaphor which most of the commentators have mentioned so far, could also _be used_ as a metaphor of resistance by the invaded. With all the risk of simply playing to all of the thinking that led a former Joy to fear the south seas (if we, white sailor/invaders show up, we will be defeated by cannibals), I cannot help but point out as an area of possible expansion to Blurton that assimilation can work both ways, and that Viking insular "invaders"/"settlers" can be thought of as being dealth with in terms of an inviting incorporation. Sure, come all the way on down to the Danelaw and we will slowly swallow you up!dan remeinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13238625507406835827noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1563872098792306752007-08-12T13:52:00.000-04:002007-08-12T13:52:00.000-04:00Moral of the story: when Eileen invites you over f...Moral of the story: when Eileen invites you over for dinner, decline. Or if you do accept, have the good social grace to rub yourself down in sage-infused butter beforehand to ensure you'll come in good taste.<BR/><BR/>Eileen, can you comment upon the relationship of this sentiment:<BR/><EM>the real truth of human history is that all living matter [whether trees or cows or pigs or humans] is potentially a disposable resource if the occasion can be justified in such a manner to "warrant" it. But human societies, although they have always had need to consume others in order to both "survive" and "consolidate," have also always had need to erect borders between "inside" and "outside" [borders, moreover, which they can shift at will in a given moment and without warning and with great harm to those living on "the other side"]. .. The truth is, we are, all of us, cannibals, but we have need of the prohibition against cannibalism in order to fool ourselves into thinking we are, if not human, then humane.</EM><BR/><BR/>to Karl in <A HREF="http://jjcohen.blogspot.com/2007/05/what-does-caninophilia-matter.html" REL="nofollow">What Does Caninophilia Matter?</A>, where he writes:<BR/><EM>Although I'm willing to entertain the possibility of prediscursive species identities and prediscursive individual identities within species--that cat, this dog, that bat, this human--there is no prediscursive human identity so long as "human" is understood to mean, as it has traditionally, a creature uniquely possessing a set of capacities that relegates every other living creature to the status of mere animal. ... humans know themselves as human--as the sole possessors of self-consciousness, reason, language, the capacity to apprehend things "as such," immortal souls, and so forth--because only animals suffer deaths that cannot be murder</EM><BR/><BR/>Wasn't that the "throw-down match" where you wrote:<BR/><EM>I *am* different, but the ultimate question [if we are talking ethics here, and god knows I hope we are] might have to be not what makes one thing different from another ... but rather how, in Kristeva's phrasing, we can "brush by" difference, to touch it even, without altering it or ever calling it into question ["Strangers to Ourselves"].</EM><BR/><BR/>Then, you went on to speak of love:<BR/><EM>How to account for the variety, the difference, of life forms, that nevertheless, make the possibility, at the same time, of "human" and "dog" possible in a way that is mutually sustaining?</EM><BR/>I'm wondering, do we want to apply the lesson of love -- and the caveat of not dismantling ourselves and our boundaries so that demarcation fails -- to the cannibal? And you know what I must mean is "the one whose place the cannibal holds')J J Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.com